Settling into the swing of the season now, with the First Impressions (mostly) over, we’re going to start finding out more about the shows we liked and the shows we didn’t like in their premiere. White Album 2 was one of those that really impressed me with its premiere, so how did the follow up go?

Looking for Singer

Not exactly a confession

After finding out that Setsuna is the singer on the roof, and that she likes to sing, Haruki thinks about asking her to join, tosses the idea, and then decides to ask anyway. If you want someone to join your band, you gotta ask them after all. But Setsuna’s not so sure, and turns it down the next day… kinda. So he lets her go, doesn’t bug her, and continues to be friendly to her, something that she usually doesn’t get. And it’s not random coincidence meetings, it’s that he’s making an effort, even figuring out that she’s got a part-time job at a grocery store.

And not exactly a rejection

Separating from the Pack

Haruki even tries to talk with the girl who won’t talk to him

The difference between Haruki and most romantic leads just keeps getting greater and greater. He’s not just a wall for the girls to talk to, or a last resort. He’s a straight-up person who tries to be as solid as he can, even trying to engage his desk neighbor in a conversation rather than talking about her with other people. And being that kind of person seems to interest Setsuna, who decides she’s going to make sure that he knows everything about her.

Nice disguise

I also like the difference that Setsuna has from so many characters in anime. Haruki can’t really believe that she’s just a normal person: Part-time job, family average, no tragedy, seemingly no problems besides her brother being bratty. Sure she’s worried about her image, but what high school girl isn’t? But she definitely seems to have a thing for Haruki, and it’s enough to have her decide to take a flier on singing for the band. Even if she loves singing, that’s still a big step. I also liked her preparation to go see Haruki after work, it definitely seemed like preparing for a date, but there was something else there, perhaps the sting of being heartbroken before. But she realizes that the window is closing on Haruki’s offer to join them, so she works up the courage and accepts.

But the Triangle’s Not Completed

Who thought this was better than just waiting outside the door?

Setsuna’s surprised that Takeya isn’t the piano player, tho, and they need to find that person before they really have a band. And it’s not looking good, since they haven’t shown up for days. Just when they’re giving up, they finally hear playing, and run to try to ask them. This leads to a hair-brained scheme to get into the music room from the window (on the 3rd floor), but Kazusa ends up saving him, while being annoyed about it. It was a nice bit of drama, even if it was kinda dumb as a setup. But now we know who the piano player is, and we’re on our way to forming at least the trio (I’m wondering how they get Takeya out of the picture now).

We finally meet her (outside of the pro/epilogue)

I’m really impressed by White Album 2 so far. It feels like it’s taking its time on the story, and giving us a nice richness to the characters. A good amount of character development for Setsuna this week, and we find out that she’s almost so unclichéd that she’s almost a cliché. And I think the show is continuing to do well at making Haruki both a guy to look up to and a guy that these girls would find interesting. We’ll see what Kazusa’s opinion of him has been, because I’m envisioning a situation where she’d had her eyes on Haruki, but has become annoyed by his growing closeness with Setsuna (although you wonder how she’d even find out about it, since she’s such a loner, and always at her desk sleeping). And you would guess that she has the same motivations as Setsuna, given that she’s been going to the music room to play along with Haruki for a month. Unfortunately for me, this show seems like that kind of show that will end up with at least one someone being heartbroken, and maybe more than one person. Can a good relationship come out of this without too many people hurt?

9 Responses to “White Album 2 – 02”

Definitely seems like Setsuna has some past and is gonna use Haruki to recover or something. There was that off-focus collection of pictures in her room. And you wouldn’t open up to a person without any reason.
Still, I’m really liking her a lot. I agree with him that she is a real idol. Pretty, keeping appearances and hiding a secret part-time job(megane braids Setsuna is also fine).

I do admit that that window stunt is stupid but I guess that was needed to set up the meeting with Kazusa(Toumaaaaa!). The drama wouldn’t be good if they just staked outside the door. Quite a deep voice for her but it might only be for this episode. One thing to complain is that they kept her face hidden from the camera for a long time.

I’ve been hearing from the VN readers that there’s a lot of suffering later but it’s not that rageworthy and done really well. And the endings are pretty satisfying after all that they’ve been through. So far it’s doing really well for me and I’m slowly seeing why this is one of the highest rated VNs in most VN websites in Japan.
This is one of my favorite shows this season now and looking forward to more.

If this is how the characters act in the VN, then I think that’s great news for us fans of romantic stories, that a story with such strong characters is leading the way. Hopefully they learn that people like that, rather than cardboard cutout characters who are just pushed into positions where things happen to them.

There’s definitely the possibility of unhappiness and tears without it being manipulative. I thought that True Tears was like that (although people will say “Okada Mari wut?”) where one person just gets caught between two others, and it just can’t end without someone getting hurt, even though noone in the story wants that.

Haruki doesn’t seem to think clearly when he feel he’s close to a breakthrough with something. No musician no matter how talented is worth risking one’s life by scaling the exterior of the building a couple of floors up. He’s lucky Kazusa was human enough to save him.

I could understand Haruki’s hesitation as he tried to ask Setsuna about joining the band and luckily she isn’t the stuck up type that would have shot him down harshly. She was sincere with her answer. Seeing that she actually works for what she wants makes her character more down to earth and I’d say it’s her best trait. The reveal of her being the girl with pig tails wearing glasses was surprising.

I had had an inkling about her in the first episode, because for whatever reason she seemed out of place as a background character. But yes, Setsuna has a lot of good traits, and really puts a good spin on the idol / popular girl character.

Wow, I had no intention of following this show. But a groovy First Impression by HWY put me on the path. It is often that an anime get by on good animation, ecchi tropes, and tons of gags, but it is awesome that a show can persist on damn good character narrative. The writer should be praised.

I think they’re even doing well with the ‘side characters’ that they’ve shown. I like the semi-smarminess that Takeya has, and the seriousness that Chikashi shows, and Io with her “You can cry on my chest anytime” and train conversation in the first episode.

I should probably wait to talk about it next week, but this show’s also doing really well with the musical part. Maybe it’s just that they’re up my alley, but that OP is great, the ED is nice (both by Uehara Rena), and the insert songs have been really good. And I’ll agree with UTW’s Raze that the show should have been called Todokanai Koi, like the OP song.

I definitely hope for a release of that song that Setsuna was singing at karaoke, because that was some great broken-hearted song writing: “If I’m gonna be the evil woman, it’ll be after standing barefoot and crying in the train at dawn…”

im kinda getting mashiroiro symphony vibes from the way things are developing. From the eps we’ve seen so far, i think it’s become obvious whose gonna end up together in the end; mashiroiro didnt fool me and neither will this!!!!….probably….

Heh, the first time I watched Mashiro-iro Symphony, I wondered why they had any other girls in it after 5 episodes, it felt so much like it was on rails and nothing was going to change. Of course, it didn’t end up like that at all and went in a completely different direction.

And in fact, my biggest disappointment with that series was that it pretty much unceremoniously dumped Airi by the side of the relationship road, just as she was actually starting to like Shingo. Then it threw in some misdirection with Sana, and then dropped her in the park crying, too. I kinda feel like that show just knew it was going to end up with Miu, and it didn’t matter what anyone else did, or even what Miu did.

That’s probably why I greatly prefer Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi, because it seemed much less arbitrary with breaking girls’ hearts.